WIP text first, then illustrations. Uncle Carl Has a Chicken on His Head

So, I am going to take my last stab at finishing Uncle Carl Has a Chicken on His Head. I have redone it several times but have never actually done it with the words as part of the design. I have been thnking I should approach it in a new way by starting with the text and leaving room for the illustrations. I was told to remove a lot of the unnecessary parts that didn't really move the story along. I tried it with the text but it sounded horrible. I did it with the illustrations and I think I need to find a midground in that case. I had a preschool teacher friend test out the text only with her class and they loved it so I feel I have succeeded as far as the text goes. (Parents might get tired of reading it but, it's a repeating rhyme that kids can learn quickly on their own and "read' to themselves. It's interactive and, IMO, can be a lot of fun for kids.)

Anyway, I'm not real smooth on manipulating the text in photoshop. All kinds of funky things happen so..I'm a little wary of using it for a whole page. I think I will write it by hand, scan it and then move it around and adjust it that way. The first part of the text is the same on every page so I could just keep copyng it ......The ilustrations will be done trditionally and scanned in for each page.